Heights of Abraham
tourist attraction in Matlock Bath, Derbyshire, England, UK
The Heights of Abraham is a tourist attraction in Matlock Bath, Derbyshire, England. It consists of a hilltop park on top of Masson Hill, accessed from the village by the Heights of Abraham cable car. The heights are named after a supposed resemblance to the Plains of Abraham, also known as the Heights of Abraham, in Quebec, Canada, where General James Wolfe died in battle against the French in 1759.
Amongst the attractions in the park, which has been open since Victorian times, are cavern and mine tours. There are also views of the dramatic scenery of the valley of the River Derwent. The cable car was opened in 1984 to provide easier access.
The Heights of Abraham are listed as grade II* in the register of historic parks and gardens of special historic interest in England.
Attractions
There are two caves at the Heights of Abraham, the Great Masson Cavern and the Great Rutland Cavern, both previously mined for lead ore and fluorspar. It is thought that lead mining in this area began in Roman times and reached its peak in the 1700s. As deposits began to dwindle, and cheaper lead was imported in the 1800s, the miners found a far more lucrative use for the caves as tourist attractions; in the process of excavation a large network of caverns and passageways were created which wealthy visitors would now pay to see.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 10, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q5699120. VIAF identifies the subject as 129377524. The Library of Congress control number is no2006120461. Authority coordinates are 53.124, -1.565. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1759 and 1984.
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This entry incorporates text from “Heights of Abraham” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.